1. Field
The described aspects relate to wireless communications, and more particularly, to maintaining quality of wireless communication service links during regulatory boundary crossings.
2. Background
All wireless communication systems must establish a wireless channel link between devices. The channel has a number of characteristics such as bandwidth and latency that impact their suitability for certain types of data. These characteristics are impacted by factors including regulatory constraints. Some communication standards lack worldwide agreement on permitted channel characteristics: each international regulatory domain may specify local legal characteristics such as frequency ranges. Devices may require knowledge of their current location and regulatory domain before transmitting, to prevent broadcasting on frequencies, power levels, or other characteristics that are not legal in that location. However, in some cases requirements for regulatory device notification of legal transmission frequencies have not been adopted. Currently, there are some standards that lack a mechanism to alert a device that the channel it has been using is no longer legal upon a regulatory boundary crossing and/or regulatory domain change. The device will remain unaware that it must implement a channel change to meet new local regulatory requirements, which may also impact the bandwidth available to the device.
Even if the device, by some proprietary mechanism, becomes aware that a channel it is using is no longer legal because of a regulatory domain change, it may at present simply have to terminate the use of the channel. This could result in a negative user experience such as loss of video or audio playback without explanation. This disclosure describes techniques that offer a wide range of options that may improve this situation. For example, using techniques described below, the device may be able to select a different channel that is legal in the new regulatory domain.
Unfortunately, a change in channel characteristics, such as a reduction in available bandwidth, after a regulatory channel change may negatively impact the user experience and Quality of Service. For example, a user application may have a Quality of Service bandwidth requirement for supporting video streaming at 20 Mega bytes per second (Mbs). If the bandwidth of the new legal channel is less than the bandwidth of the previous channel, the ability to receive the video stream may be impaired. There is therefore a need in the art for optimizing the selection of a new channel during regulatory domain changes and improving the user experience during changes in the underlying physical link that impact the available bandwith by maintaining Quality of Service.